podtabulous!

I can’t quite believe I’m writing a post about interior decor (really, folks, my home is not all that) . . .but I confess that I am very pleased with the pod’s new posh paint job, and with my revitalised workspace, so here are a few details.

The walls are painted with “Skimming Stone”. We used this same shade when redecorating our bedroom last year (I have a habit of getting paint for my birthday), and at that time had lengthy discussions about the different qualities of Farrow and Ball’s neutrals, which their colour card (lovely as it is) does not convey. Both of us were initially very keen to cover our walls with “Elephant’s Breath”, but when we swatched, it turned out to be the mucky grey-ey brown that its name perhaps suggests. “Skimming Stone” has a warmth, a clarity, and a quietness to it. You can see this, I think, on some of the interior shots I’ve taken in our bedroom – for example here and here. I think it is a neutral that does great things with whatever light there is.

The woodwork, chair, and some of the shelves, are painted with “Pigeon.” I heart pigeon! A few years ago I was doing some research for a piece about dolls which took me to Mary King’s Close, where I got to pop inside some of the spaces in the buried tenements that are not open to the public. Pigeon, to me, is the colour of those hidden rooms.

It is very hard to photograph the pod, because it is so damned small, but this shot gives you a reasonable sense of the Skimming Stone Walls, with a Pigeon-coloured bookcase at the bottom edge of the pic.

The light is coming from a gigantic wall-mounted lamp that, in lieu of a window, blasts out 10000 lux to prevent the pod from feeling too much like the storage cupboard it really is. The prints depict my locale, and its fisherfolk, a century and a half ago. The fishy theme continues elsewhere on the walls . . .

(this winsome lassie is a fashion plate from the moment when there was a brief trend in fishwife chic, following the International Fisheries Exhibitions of the late 1890s)

. . . on the desk

(a happy ebay find)

. . . and on my new pinboard, for swatches and design ideas.

Above the desk is a framed print of Caspar Netscher’s Lacemaker, which I’ve had for many years.

I’ve read a few fairly standard readings about gender and virtue &c &c in this painting, but what I really like about it is its Chinese-box quality: she is sat in a small box-like space, contemplatively engaged in detailed textile work; Netscher (a superlative painter of textiles if ever there was one), is similarly engaged, and I, sat at my desk in my pod, am too. I love the heavy woolliness of her woollen skirt and bodice, and the detail of her cap just about kills me – perhaps not least because I own a dress whose fabric is curiously reminiscent of it.

Well, that’s all you get to see of the pod today. But lest you think that I’ve gone all ideal home on you or summat, and since all Tuesdays are messy ones round here, I present to you some details from the rooms which are not neat and freshly painted.

Tea stains and dog hair perfectly set off an Orla Kiely radio. . .

Dust gathering in picturesque fashion against Farrow and Ball paintwork

Paint covered overalls that are yet to be dealt with . . . .

. . . and finally, and most messy of all, a terrifying discovery among the pod’s accumulated detritus

me, in 1992.